^LIBRARY OF CONGRESS.! 
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Marjorie Fleming. 



A SKETCH. 



BEING THE PAPER ENTITLED 



"PET MARJORIE: A STORY OF CHILD-LIFE 
FIFTY YEARS AGO." 



By JOHN BROWN, M. D., 

AUTHOR OF "RAB AND HIS FRIENDS," 



BOSTON : 
TICKNOR AND FIELDS 
♦ . 1864, 






s~2>\ 



NOTE. 



The separate publication of this sketch has been forced upon me by 
the " somewhat free use," made of it in a second and thereby enlarged 
edition of the " little book " to which I owe my introduction to Marjorie 
Fleming, — but nothing more j a "use" so exceedingly "free" as to 
extend almost to everything with which I had ventured perhaps to 
encumber the letters and journals of that dear child. To be called 
" kind and genial " by the individual who devised this edition has, 
strange as he may think it, altogether failed to console me. Empty 
praise without the solid pudding is proverbially a thing of naught j but 
what shall we say of praise the emptiness of which is aggravated, not 
merely by the absence, but by" the actual abstraction, of the pudding ? 

This little act of conveyancing — this "engaging compilation," as he 
would have called it — puts me in mind of that pleasant joke in the 
preface to " Essays by Mr. Goldsmith " : "I would desire in this case, 
to imitate that fat man whom I have somewhere heard of in a ship- 
wreck, who when the sailors, prest by famine, were taking slices from 
his body, to satisfy their hunger, insisted with great justice on having 
the first cut for himself." 

I have to thank the proprietors of the North British Review for per- 
mitting this reprint. 

J.B. 



MISS FLEMING, 

TO WHOM I AM INDEBTED FOR ALL ITS MATERIALS, 

THIS MEMORIAL 

OF HER DEAR AND UNFORGOTTEN 

MAIDIE 

IS GRATEFULLY INSCRIBED. 



MARJORIE FLEMING. 

ONE November afternoon in 1810, — the 
year in which Waverley was resumed and 
laid aside again, to be finished off, its last two 
volumes in three weeks, and made immortal in 
1 8 14, and when its author, by the death of 
'Lord Melville, narrowly escaped getting a civil 
appointment in India, — three men, evidently 
lawyers, might have been seen escaping like 
school-boys from the Parliament House, and 
speeding arm in arm down Bank Street and the 
Mound, in the teeth of a surly blast of sleet. 

The three friends sought the bield of the low 
wall old Edinburgh boys remember well, and 
sometimes miss now, as they struggle with the 
stout west wind. 

The three were curiously unlike each other. 
One, "a little man of feeble make, who would 
be unhappy if his pony got beyond a foot 
pace," slight, with "small, elegant features, hec- 
tic cheek, and soft hazel eyes, the index of the 



6 Marjorie Fleming. 

quick, sensitive spirit within, as if he had the 
warm heart of a woman, her genuine enthusi- 
asm, and some of her weaknesses/' Another, 
as unlike a woman as a man can be ; homely, 
almost common, in look and figure ; his hat 
and his coat, and indeed his entire covering, 
worn to the quick, but all of the best material ; 
what redeemed him from vulgarity and mean- 
ness were his eye.s, deep set, heavily thatched, 
keen, hungry, shrewd, with a slumbering glow 
far in, as if they could be dangerous ; a man to 
care nothing for at first glance, but, somehow, 
to give a second and not-forgetting look at. 
The third was the biggest of the three, and 
though lame, nimble, and all rough and alive 
with power ; had you met him anywhere else, 
you would say he was a Liddesdale store-farmer, 
come of gentle blood ; " a stout, blunt carle/' 
as he says of himself, with the swing and stride 
and the eye of a man of the hills, — a large, 
sunny, out-of-door air all about him. On his 
broad and somewhat stooping shoulders was 
set that head which, with Shakespeare's and 
Bonaparte's, is the best known in all the world. 
He was in high spirits, keeping his compan- 
ions and himself in roars of laughter, and every 
now and then seizing them, and stopping, that 



Marjorie Fleming, y 

they might take their fill of the fun ; there they 
stood shaking with laughter, cc not an inch of 
their body free " from its grip. At George 
Street they parted, one to Rose Court, behind 
St. Andrew's Church, one to Albany Street, the 
other, our big and limping friend, to Castle 
Street. 

We need hardly give their names. The first 
was William Erskine, afterwards Lord Kinned- 
der, chased out of the world by a calumny 3 
killed by its foul breath, — 

c And at the touch of wrong, without a strife, 
Slipped in a moment out of life." 

There is nothing in literature more beautiful 
or more pathetic than Scott's love and sorrow 
for this friend of his youth. 

The second was William Clerk, — the Darsie 
Latimer of Redgauntlet ; cc a man," as Scott says, 
cc of the most acute intellects and powerful ap- 
prehension," but of more powerful indolence, 
so as to leave the world with little more than 
the report of what he might have been, — a hu- 
morist as genuine, though not quite so savagely 
Swiftian as his brother Lord Eldin, neither of 
whom had much of that commonest and best 
of all the humors, called good. 



8 Marjorie Fleming. 

The third we all know. What has he not 
done for every one of us ? Who else ever, 
except Shakespeare, so diverted mankind, en- 
tertained and entertains a world so liberally, so 
wholesomely ? We are fain to say, not even 
Shakespeare, for his is something deeper than 
diversion, something higher than pleasure, and 
yet who would care to split this hair ? 

Had any one watched him closely before and 
after the parting, what a change he would see ! 
The bright, broad laugh, the shrewd, jovial 
word, the man of the Parliament House and 
of the world, and, next step, moody, the light 
of his eye withdrawn, as if seeing things that 
were invisible ; his shut mouth, like a child's, 
so impressionable, so innocent, so sad : he was 
now all within, as before he was all without ; 
hence his brooding look. As the snow blat- 
tered in his face, he muttered, "How it raves 
and drifts ! On-ding o' snaw — ay, that 's the 
word — on-ding — ." He was now at his own 
door, cc Castle Street, No. 39." He opened 
the door, and went straight to his den ; that 
wondrous workshop, where, in one year, 1823, 
when he was fifty-two, he wrote Peveril of 4 he 
Peak, Shientin Durward, and St. Ronari s Well^ 
besides much else. We once took the foremost 



Marjorie Fleming. g 

of our novelists, the greatest, we would say, 
since Scott, into this room, and could not but 
mark the solemnizing effect of sitting where the 
great magician sat so often and so long, and 
looking out upon that little shabby bit of sky, 
and that back green where faithful Camp lies.* 

He sat down in his large, green morocco 
elbow-chair, drew himself close to his table, and 
glowered and gloomed at his writing apparatus, 
"a very handsome old box, richly carved, lined 
with crimson velvet, and containing ink-bottles, 
taper-stand, etc., in silver, the whole in such 
order that it might have come from the silver- 
smith's window half an hour before." He took 
out his paper, then, starting up angrily, said, 
cc c Go spin, you jade, go spin.' No, d — it, it 
won't do : — 

* My spinnin'-wheel is auld and stiff; 

The rock o 9 t wunna stand, sir ; 
To keep the temper-pin in tiff 

Employs ower aft my hand, sir.' 

* This favorite dog " died about January, 1809, and was 
buried, in a fine moonlight night, in the little garden behind 
the house in Castle Street. My wife tells me she remem- 
bers the whole family in tears about the grave, as her father 
himself smoothed the turf above Camp with the saddest face 
.she had ever seen. He had been engaged to dine abroad 
that day, but apologized on account of the death of ' a dear 
old friend.' " — Lockhart's Life of Scott. 



io Marjorie Fleming. 

I am off the fang.* I can make nothing of 
Waverley to-day; I '11 awa' to Marjorie. Come 
wi' me, Maida, you thief/' The great creature 
rose slowly, and the pair were off, Scott taking 
a maud (a plaid) with him. "White as a frost- 
ed plum-cake, by jingo ! " said he, when he got 
to the street. Maida gambolled and whisked 
among the snow ; and his master strode across 
to Young Street, and through it to i North 
Charlotte Street, to the house of his dear friend, 
Mrs. William Keith of Corstorphine Hill, niece 
of Mrs. Keith of Ravelston, of whom he said at 
her death, eight years after, " Much tradition, 
and that of the best, has died with this excellent 
old lady, one of the few persons whose spirits 
and cleanliness and freshness of mind and body 
made old age lovely and desirable." 

Sir Walter was in that house almost every 
day, and had a key, so in he and the hound 
went, shaking themselves in the lobby. <c Mar- 
jorie ! Marjorie ! " shouted her friend, "where 
are ye, my bonnie wee croodlin doo ? " In a 
moment a bright, eager child of seven was in 
his arms, and he was kissing her all over. Out 
came Mrs. Keith. cc Come yer ways in, Wat- 

* Applied to a pump when it is dry and its valve has lost 
its "fang" ; from the German, f(Uige?i> to hold. 



Marjorie Fleming. 1 1 

tie." " No, not now. I am going to take 
Marjorie wi' me, and you may come to your 
tea in Duncan Roy's sedan, and bring the bairn 
home in your lap." cc Tak' Marjorie, and it 
on-ding d snaw ! " said Mrs. Keith. He said 
to himself, cc On-ding — that 's odd — that is 
the very word." cc Hoot, awa ! look here," 
and he displayed the corner of his plaid, made 
to hold lambs, — the true shepherd's plaid, 
consisting of two breadths sewed together, and 
uncut at one end, making a poke or cul de sac. 
cc Tak' yer lamb," said she, laughing at the 
contrivance ; and so the Pet was first well hap- 
pit up, and then put, laughing silently, into 
the plaid neuk, and the shepherd strode off 
with his lamb, — Maida gambolling through 
the snow, and running races in her mirth. 

Did n't he face cc the angry airt," and make 
her bield his bosom, and into his own room with 
her, and lock the door, and out with the warm, 
rosy, little wifie, who took it all with great com- 
posure ! There the two remained for three or 
more hours, making the house ring with their 
laughter ; you can fancy the big man's and 
Maidie's laugh. Having made the fire cheery, 
he set her down in his ample chair, and, stand- 
ing sheepishly before her, began to say his les- 



12 Marjorie Fleming, 

son, which happened to be — " Ziccotty, diccot- 
ty, dock, the mouse ran up the clock, the clock 
struck wan, down the mouse ran, ziccotty, dic- 
cotty, dock." This done repeatedly till she was 
pleased, she gave him his new lesson, gravely 
and slowly, timing it upon her small fingers, — 
he saying it after her, — 

" Wonery, twoery, tickery, seven ; 
Alibi, crackaby, ten, and eleven ; 
Pin, pan, musky, dan ; 
Tweedle-um, twoddle-um, 
Twenty-wan ; eerie, orie, ourie, 
You, are, out." 

He pretended to great difficulty, and she re- 
buked him with most comical gravity, treating 
him as a child. He used to say that when he 
came to Alibi Crackaby he broke down, and 
pin-Pan, Musky-dan, Tweedle-um, Twoddle- 
um made him roar with laughter. He said 
Musky-Dan especially was beyond endurance, 
bringing up an Irishman and his hat fresh from 
the Spice Islands and odoriferous Ind ; she 
getting quite bitter in her displeasure at his ill 
behavior and stupidness. 

Then he would read ballads to her in his 
own glorious wayj the two getting wild with 
excitement over Gil Morrice or the Baron of 



Marjorie Fleming, 13 

Smailholm ; and he would take her on his knee, 
and make her repeat Constance's speeches in 
King John, till he swayed to and fro, sobbing 
his filL Fancy the gifted little creature, like 
one possessed, repeating, — 

" For I am sick, and capable of fears, — 
Oppressed with wrong, and, therefore, full of fears ; 
A widow, husbandless, subject to fears ; 
A woman, naturally born to fears." 

" If thou, that bidst me be content, wert grim, 
Ugly, and slanderous to thy mother's womb, — - 
Lame, foolish, crooked, swart, prodigious — ." 

Or, drawing herself up " to the height of her 
great argument," — 

" I will instruct my sorrows to be proud, 
For grief is proud, and makes his owner stout. 
Here I and sorrow sit." 

Scott used to say that he was amazed at her 
power over him, saying to Mrs. Keith, Cf She 'g 
the most extraordinary creature I ever met with, 
and her repeating of Shakespeare overpowers me 
as nothing else does." 

Thanks to the little book whose title heads 
this paper, and thanks still more to the unfor- 
getting sister of this dear child, who has much 
of the sensibility and fun of her who has been 
in her small grave these fifty and more years, 



t 14 Marjorie Fleming. 

we have now before us the letters and journals 
of Pet Marjorie: before us lies and gleams her 
rich brown hair, bright and sunny as if yester- 
day's, with the words on the paper, cc Cut out 
in her last illness," and two pictures of her by 
her beloved Isabella, whom she worshipped ; 
there are the faded old scraps of paper, hoarded 
still* over which her warm breath and her warm 
little heart had poured themselves ; there is the 
old water-mark, cc Lingard, 1808/' The two 
portraits are very like each other, but plainly 
done at different times ; it is a chubby, healthy 
face, deep-set, brooding eyes, as eager to tell 
what is going on within as to gather in all the 
glories from without ; quick with the wonder 
and the pride of life : they are eyes that would 
not be soon satisfied with seeing ; eyes that 
would devour their object, and yet childlike and 
fearless ; and that is a mouth that will not be 
soon satisfied with love ; it has a curious like- 
ness to Scott's own, which has always appeared 
to us his sweetest, most mobile, and speaking 
feature. 

There she is, looking straight at us as she 
did at him, — fearless, and full of love, pas- 
sionate, wild, wilful, fancy's child. One cannot 
look at it without thinking of Wordsworth's 
lines on poor Hartley Coleridge: — 



Mar j one Fleming. 15 

" O blessed vision, happy child ! 
Thou art so exquisitely wild, 
I thought 9/ thee with many fears, — 
Of what might be thy lot in future years. 
I thought of times when Pain might be thy guest, 
Lord of thy house and hospitality ; 
And Grief, uneasy lover ! ne'er at rest 
But when she sat within the touch of thee, 
O too industrious folly ! 
O vain and causeless melancholy ! 
Nature will either end thee quite, 
Or, lengthening out thy season of delight, 
Preserve for thee, by individual right, 
A young lamb's heart among the full-grown flock." 

And we can imagine Scott, when holding his 
warm, plump little playfellow in his arms, re- 
peating that stately friend's lines : — 

" Loving she is, and tractable, though wild ; 

And Innocence hath privilege in her, 
. To dignify arch looks and laughing eyes 

And feats of cunning, and the pretty round 

Of trespasses, affected to provoke 

Mock chastisement and partnership in play. 

And, as a fagot sparkles on the hearth 

Not less if unattended and alone 

Than when both young and old sit gathered round 

And take delight in its activity, 

Even so this happy creature of herself 

Is all-sufficient ; solitude to her 

Is blithe society : she fills the air 

With gladness and involuntary songs." 



1 6 Marjorie Fleming. 

But we will let her disclose herself. We need 
hardly say that all this is true, and that these 
letters are as really Marjorie's as was this light- 
brown hair ; indeed, you could as easily fabri- 
cate the one as the other. 

There was an old servant — Jeanie Robert- 
son — who was forty years in her grandfather's 
family. Marjorie Fleming, or, as she is called 
in the letters and by Sir Walter, Maidie, was 
the last child she kept. Jeanie' s wages never 
exceeded £3 a year, and when she left service 
she had saved £ 40. She was devotedly attached 
to Maidie, rather despising and ill-using her 
sister Isabella, — a beautiful and gentle child. 
This partiality made Maidie apt at times to 
domineer over Isabella. " I mention this," 
writes her surviving sister, cc for the purpose 
of telling you an instance of Maidie' s gener- 
ous justice. When only five years old, when 
walking in Raith grounds, the two children had 
run on before, and old Jeanie remembered they 
might come too near a dangerous- mill-lade. 
She called to them to turn back. Maidie heeded 
her not, rushed all the faster on, and fell, and 
would have been lost, had her sister not pulled 
her back, saving her life, but tearing her clothes. 
Jeanie flew on Isabella to "give it her" for 



Marjorie Fleming. 17 

spoiling her favorite's dress ; Maidie rushed 
in between, crying out, cc Pay (whip) Maidjie 
as much as you like, and I '11 not say one word ; 
but touch Isy, and I '11 roar like a bull ! " 
Years after Maidie was resting in her grave, 
my mother used to take me to the place, and 
told the story always in the exact same words." 
This Jeanie must have been a character. She 
took great pride in exhibiting Maidie' s brother 
William's Calvinistic acquirements when nineteen 
months old, to the officers of a militia regiment 
then quartered in Kirkcaldy. This perform- 
ance was so amusing that it was often repeated, 
and the little theologian was presented by them 
with a cap and feathers. Jeanie' s glory was 
"putting him through the carritch" (catechism) 
in broad Scotch, beginning at the beginning 
with f c Wha made ye, ma bonnie man ? " For 
the correctness of this and the three next re- 
plies, Jeanie had no anxiety, but the tone 
changed to menace, and the closed nieve (fist) 
was shaken in the child's face as she demanded, 
cc Of what are you made ? " " Dirt," was the 
answer uniformly given. "Wull ye never learn 
to say dust) ye thrawn deevil ? " with a cuff 
from the opened hand, was the as inevitable 
rejoinder. 



1 8 Marjorie Fleming. 

Here is Maidie's first letter before she was 
six. The spelling unaltered, and there are no 
"commoes." 

" My dear Isa, — I now sit down to answer 
all your kind and beloved letters which you 
was so good as to write to me. This is the 
first time I ever wrote a letter in my Life. 
There are a great many Girls in the Square, 
and they cry just like a pig when we are under 
the painfull necessity of putting it to Death. 
Miss Potune, a Lady of my acquaintance, 
praises me dreadfully. I repeated something 
out of Dean Swift, and she said I was fit for 
the stage, and you may think I was primmed 
up with majestick Pride, but upon my word 
I felt myselfe turn a little birsay, — birsay is 
a word which is a word that William composed 
which is as you may suppose a little enraged. 
This horrid fat simpliton says that my Aunt 
is beautifull, which is intirely impossible, for 
that is not her nature. V 

What a peppery little pen we wield ! What 
could that have been out of the Sardonic Dean ? 
what other child of that age would have used 
<c beloved " as she does? This power of affec- 
tion, this faculty of Gloving, and wild hunger 



Marjorie Fleming. 19 

to be beloved, comes out more and more. She 
perilled her all upon it, and it may have been 
as well — we know, indeed,, that it was far 
better — for her that this wealth of love was 
so soon withdrawn to its one only infinite 
Giver and Receiver. This must have been the 
law of her earthly life. Love was indeed "her 
Lord and King"; and it was perhaps well for 
her that she found so soon that her and our 
only Lord and King, Himself is Love. 

Here are bits from her Diary at Braehead : — 
cc The day of my existence here has been de- 
lightful and enchanting. On Saturday I ex- 
pected no less than three well-made Bucks, the 
names of whom is here advertised. Mr. Geo, 
Crakey (Craigie), and Wm. Keith, and Jn. 
Keith, — the first is the funniest of every one 
of them. Mr. Crakey and walked to Craky- 
hall (Craigiehall), hand in hand in Innocence 
and matitation (meditation) sweet thinking on 
the kind love which flows in our tender-hearted 
mind which is overflowing with majestic pleas- 
ure no one was ever so polite to me in the hole 
state of my existence. Mr. Craky you must 
know is a great Buck, and pretty good-look- 
ing. 

"I am at Ravelston enjoying nature's fresh 



ao Marjorie Fleming. 

air. The birds are singing sweetly, the calf 
doth frisk, and nature shows her glorious face/' 

Here is a confession : cc I confess I have 
been very more like a little young divil than a 
creature for when Isabella went up stairs to 
teach me religion and my multiplication and to 
be good and all my other lessons I stamped 
with my foot and threw my new hat which she 
had made on the ground and was sulky and was 
dreadfully passionate, but she never whiped me 
but said Marjory go into another room and 
think what a great crime you are committing 
letting your temper git the better of you. Bitf 
I went so sulkily that the Devil got the better of 
me but she never never never whips me so that 
I think I would be the better of it and the next 
time that I behave ill I think she should do it 
for she never never does it. . . . Isabella has 
given me praise for checking my temper for I 
was sulky even when she was kneeling an hole 
hour teaching me to write." 

Our poor little wifie, — she has no doubts of 
the personality of the Devil! "Yesterday I 
behave extremely ill in God's most holy church 
for I would never attend myself nor let Isabella 
attend which was a great crime for she often, 
often tells me that when to or three are geath- 



Marjorie Fleming. 21 

ered together God is in the midst of them, and 
it was the very same Divil that tempted Job 
that tempted me I am sure ; but he resisted 
Satan though he had boils and many many 
other misfortunes which I have escaped. . . . 
I am now going to tell you the horible and 
wretched plaege (plague) that my multiplication 
gives me you can't conceive it the most Devil- 
ish thing is 8 times 8 and 7 times 7 it is what 
nature itself cant endure." 

This is delicious ; and what harm is there 
in her cc Devilish " ? It is strong language 
merely; even old Rowland Hill used to say 
"he grudged the Devil those rough and ready 
words." " I walked to that delightful place 
Craky-hall with a delightful young man beloved 
by all his friends espacially by me his loveress, 
but I must not talk any more about him for 
Isa said it is not proper for to speak of gen- 
talmen but I will never forget him ! . . . I 
am very very glad that satan has not given 
me boils and many other misfortunes — In the 
holy bible these words are written that the 
Devil goes like a roaring lyon in search of his 
pray but the lord lets us escape from him but 
we" {pduvre petite /) "do not strive with this 
awfull Spirit. . . . To-day I pronunced a word 



22 Marjorie Fleming. 

which should never come out of a lady's lips 
it was that I called John a Impudent Bitch. I 
will tell you what I think made me in so bad a 
humor is I got one or two of that bad bad sina 
(senna) tea to-day," — a better excuse for bad 
humor and bad language than most. 

She has been reading the Book of Esther : 
cc It was a dreadful thing that Haman was 
hanged on the very gallows which he had pre- 
pared for Mordeca to hang him and his ten 
sons thereon and it was very wrong and cruel 
to hang his sons for they did not commit the 
crime ; but then Jesus was not then come to teach 
us to be merciful." This is wise and beautiful, — 
has upon it the very dew of youth and of holi- 
ness. Out of the mouths of babes and suck- 
lings He perfects His praise. 

" This is Saturday and I am very glad of it 
because I have play half the Day and I get 
money too but alas I owe Isabella 4 pence for 
I am finned 2 pence whenever I bite my nails. 
Isabella is teaching me to make simme col- 
ings nots of interrigations peorids commoes, 
etc. ... As this is Sunday I will meditate 
upon Senciable and Religious subjects. First 
I should be very thankful I am not a begger." 

This amount of meditation and thankfulness 
seems to have been all she was able for. 



Marjorie Fleming. 23 

" I am going to-morrow to a delightfull place, 
Braehead by name, belonging to Mrs. Crraford, 
where there is ducks cocks hens bubblyjocks 
2 dogs 2 cats and swine which is delightful. I 
think it is shocking to think that the dog and 
cat should bear them ,, (this is a meditation 
physiological), " and they are drowned after all. 
I would rather have a man-dog than a woman- 
dog, because they do not bear like women- 
dogs ; it is a hard case — it is shocking. I 
cam here to enjoy natures delightful breath it 
is sweeter than a fial (phial) of rose oil." 

Braehead is the farm the historical Jock How- 
ison asked and got from our gay James the 
Fifth, cc the gudeman o' Ballengiech," as a re- 
ward for the services of his flail, when the King 
had the worst of it at Cramond Brig with the 
gypsies. The farm is unchanged in size from 
that time, and still in the unbroken line of the 
ready and victorious thrasher. Braehead is held 
on the condition of the possessor being ready to 
present the King with a ewer and basin to wash 
his hands, Jock having done this for his un- 
known king after the splore^ and when George the 
Fourth came to Edinburgh this ceremony was 
performed in silver at Holyrood. It is a lovely 
neuk this Braehead, preserved almost as it was 



24 Marjorie Fleming. 

200 years ago. cc Lot and his wife," mentioned 
by Maidie — two quaintly cropped yew-trees — 
still thrive, the burn runs as it did in her time, 
and sings the same quiet tune, — as much the 
same and as different as Now and Then. The 
house full of old family relics and pictures, the 
sun shining on them through the small deep 
windows with their plate glass ; and there, 
blinking at the sun, and chattering contentedly, 
is a parrot, that might, for its looks of eld, 
have been in the ark, and domineered over and 
deaved the dove. Everything about the place 
is old and fresh. 

This is beautiful : c< I am very sorry to say 
that I forgot God — that is to say I forgot 
to pray to-day and Isabella told me that I 
should be thankful that God did not forget 
me — if he did, O what become of me if I 
was in danger and God not friends with me — 
I must go to unquenchable fire and if I was 
tempted to sin — how could I resist it O no I 
will never do it again — no no — if I can help 
it." (Canny wee wifie !) cc My religion is 
greatly falling off because I dont pray with so 
much attention when I am saying my prayers, 
and my charecter is lost among the Braehead 
people. I hope I will be religious again — but 



Marjorie Fleming. 2$ 

as for regaining my charecter I despare for it." 
(Poor little 5 habit and repute ' !) 

Her temper, her passion, and her "badness" 
are almost daily confessed and deplored : " I 
will never again trust to my own power, for I 
see that I cannot be good without God's assist- 
ance, — I will not trust in my own selfe, and 
Isa's health will be quite ruined by me, — it 
will indeed." " Isa has giving me advice, which 
is, that when I feal Satan beginning to tempt 
me, that I flea him and he would flea me." 
" Remorse is the worst thing to bear, and I 
am afraid that I will fall a marter to it." 

Poor dear little sinner ! Here comes the 
world again : " In my travels I met with a 
handsome lad named Charles Balfour Esq., 
and from him I got ofers of marage — offers 
of marage, did I say ? Nay plenty heard me." 
A fine scent for "breach of promise" ! 

This is abrupt and strong : " The Divil is 
curced and all works. 'Tis a fine work Newton 
on the profecies. I wonder if there is another 
book of poems comes near the Bible. The 
Divil always girns at the sight of the Bible." 
"Miss Potune" (her "simpliton" friend) "is 
very fat ; she pretends to be very learned. She 
says she saw a stone that dropt from the skies ; 



26 Marjorie Fleming. 

but she is a good Christian." Here come her 
views on church government : cc An Annibab- 
tist is a thing I am not a member of — I 
am a Pisplekan (Episcopalian) just now, and" 
(O .you little Laodicean and Latitudinarian !) 
cc a Prisbeteran at Kirkcaldy ! " — (Blandula ! 
Vagula I ccelum et animum mutas qu<e trans mare 
(i. e. trans Bodotriam)-curris !) — " my native 
town." cc Sentiment is not what I am acquaint- 
ed with as yet, though I wish it, and should like 
to practise it." (!) cc I wish I had a great, great 
deal of gratitude in my heart, in all my body." 
cc There is a new novel published, named Self- 
Control" (Mrs. Brunton's) — cc a very good 
maxim forsooth ! " This is shocking : cc Yes- 
terday a marrade man, named Mr. John Bal- 
four, Esq., offered to kiss me, and offered to 
marry me, though the man " (a fine directness 
this !) "was espused, and his wife was present 
and said he must ask her permission ; but he 
did not. I think he was ashamed and con- 
founded before 3 gentelman — Mr. Jobson and 
2 Mr. Kings." cc Mr. Banester's " (Bannis- 
ter's) cc Budjet is to-night ; I hope it will be 
a good one. A great many authors have ex- 
pressed themselves too sentimentally." You 
are rio;ht, Marjorie. "A Mr. Burns writes a 



Marjorie Fleming. 27 

beautiful song on Mr. Cunhaming, whose wife 
desarted him — truly it is a most beautiful 
one." cc I like to read the Fabulous historys, 
about the histerys of Robin, Dickey, flapsay, 
and Peccay, and it is very amusing, for some 
were good birds and others bad, but Peccay was 
the most dutiful and obedient to her parients." 
cc Thomson is a beautiful author, and Pope, 
but nothing to Shakespear, of which I have a 
little knolege. Macbeth is a pretty composi- 
tion, but awful one." cc The Newgate Calender 
is very instructive." (!) CC A sailor called here 
to say farewell ; it must be dreadful to leave 
his native country when he might get a wife ; 
or perhaps me, for I love him very much. But 
O I forgot, Isabella forbid me to speak about 
love." This antiphlogistic regimen and lesson 
is ill to learn by our Maidie, for here she sins 
again : cc Love is a very papithatick thing " (it 
is almost a pity to correct this into pathetic), 
"as well as troublesome and tiresome — but O 
Isabella "forbid me to speak of it." Here are 
her reflections on a pine-apple : " I think the 
price of a pine-apple is very dear : it is a whole 
bright goulden guinea, that might have sus- 
tained a poor family." Here is a new vernal 
simile : " The hedges are sprouting like chicks 



28 Marjorie Fleming. 

from the eggs when they are newly hatchea or, 
as the vulgar say, clacked.'' " Doctor Swift's 
works are very funny ; I got some of them by 
heart." " Moreheads sermons are I hear much 
praised, but I never read sermons of any kind ; 
but I read novelettes and my Bible, and I never 
forget it, or my prayers." Bravo Marjorie ! 

She seems now, when still about six, to have 
broken out into song : — 

" EPHIBOL (EPIGRAM OR EPITAPH WHO KNOWS WHICH ?) 

ON MY DEAR LOVE, ISABELLA. 

Here lies sweet Isabel in bed, 

With a night-cap on her head ; 

Her skin is soft, her face is fair, 

And she has very pretty hair : 

She and I in bed lies nice, 

And undisturbed by rats or mice. 

She is disgusted with Mr. Worgan, 

Though he plays upon the organ. 

Her nails are neat, her teeth are white ; 

Her eyes are very, very bright. 

In a conspicuous town she lives, 

And to the poor her money gives. 

Here ends sweet Isabella's story, 

And may it be much to her glory ! " 

Here are some bits at random : — 

" Of summer I am very fond, 
And love to bathe into a doe 



Marjorie Fleming. 29 

The look of sunshine dies away, 

And will not let me out to play. 

I love the morning's sun to spy 

Glittering through the casement's eye ; 

The rays of light are very sweet, 

And puts away the taste, of meat. 

The balmy breeze comes down from heaven, 

And makes us like for to be living." 

cc The casawary is an curious bird, and so is 
the gigantic crane, and the pelican of the wilder- 
ness, whose mouth holds a bucket of fish and 
water. Fighting is what ladies is not qualyfied 
for, they would not make a good figure in bat- 
tle or in a duel. Alas ! we females are of little 
use to our country. The history of all the 
malcontents as ever was hanged is amusing." 
Still harping on the Newgate Calendar ! 

cc Braehead is extremely pleasant to me by 
the companie of swine, geese, cocks, etc., and 
they are the delight of my soul." 

" I am going to tell you of a melancholy 
story. A young turkie of 2 or 3 months old, 
would you believe it, the father broke its leg, 
and he killed another ! I think he ought to 
be transported or hanged." 

" Queen Street is a very gay one, and so is 
Princes Street, for all the lads and lasses, be- 
sides bucks and beggars parade there." 



jo Marjorie Fleming. 

" I should like to see a play very much, for 
I never saw one in all my life, and don't believe 
I ever shall ; but I hope I can be content with- 
out going to one. I can be quite happy with- 
out my desire being granted." 

" Some days ago Isabella had a terrible fit of 
the toothake, and she walked with a long night- 
shift at dead of night like a ghost, and I thought 
she was one. She prayed for nature's sweet 
restorer — balmy sleep — but did not get it — 
a ghostly figure indeed she was, enough to make 
a saint tremble. It made me*quiver and shake 
from top to toe. Superstition is a very mean 
thing and should be despised and shunned." 

Here is her weakness and her strength again : 
— "In the love-novels all the heroines are very 
desperate. Isabella will not allow me to speak 
about lovers and heroins, and 't is too refined 
for my taste." " Miss Egward's (Edgeworth's) 
tails are very good, particularly some that are 
very much adapted for youth (!) as Laz Lau- 
rance and Tarelton, False Keys, etc. etc." 

" Tom Jones and Grey's Elegey in a country 
churchyard are both excellent, and much spoke 
of by both sex, particularly by the men." Are 
our Marjories now-a-days better or worse be- 
cause they cannot read Tom Jones unharmed ? 



Marjorie Fleming. 31 

More better than worse ; but who among them 
can repeat Gray's Lines on a distant prospect 
of Eton College as could our Maidie ? 

Here is some more of her prattle : " I went 
into Isabella's bed to make her smile like 
the Genius Demedicus"(the Venus de Medicis) 
cc or the statute in an ancient Greece, but she 
fell asleep in my very face, at which my anger 
broke forth, so that I awoke her from a com- 
fortable nap. All was now hushed up again, 
but again my anger burst forth at her biding me 
get up." 

She begins thus loftily : — 

" Death the righteous love to see, 
But from it doth the wicked flee." 

Then suddenly breaks off as if with laugh- 
ter, — 

" I am sure they fly as fast as their legs can carry them ! " 
" There is a thing I love to see, — 
That is, our monkey catch a flee ! " 

" I love in Isa's bed to lie, — 
Oh, such a joy and luxury ! 
The bottom of the bed I sleep, 
And with great care within I creep ; 
Oft I embrace her feet of lillys, 
But she has goton all the pillys. 
Her neck I never can embrace, 
But I do hug her feet in place." 



32 Marjorie Fleming. 

How childish and yet how strong and free is 
her use of words ! — " I lay at the foot of the 
bed because Isabella said I disturbed her by con- 
tinial fighting and kicking,' but I was very dull, 
and continially at work reading the Arabian 
Nights, which I could not have done if I had 
slept at the top. I am reading the Mysteries of 
Udolpho. I am much interested in the fate of 
poor, poor Emily." 

Here is one of her swains : — 

" Very soft and white his cheeks ; 
His hair is red, and grey his breeks ; 
His tooth is like the daisy fair : 
His only fault is in his hair." 

This is a higher flight : — 
" Dedicated to Mrs. H. Crawford by the Author, M. F. 

Three turkeys fair their last have breathed, 

And now this world forever leaved ; 

Their father, and their mother too, 

They sigh and weep as well as you : 

Indeed, the rats their bones have crunched ; 

Into eternity theire laanched. 

A direful death indeed they had, 

As wad put any parent mad ; 

But she was more than usual calm :• 

She did not give a single dam." 

This last word is saved from all sin by its 
tender age, not to speak of the want of the ;/. 



Marjorie Fleming. 33 

We fear cc she " is the abandoned mother, in 
spite of her previous sighs and tears. 

" Isabella says when we pr£y we should pray 
fervently, and not rattel over a prayer, — for 
that we are kneeling at the footstool of our 
Lord and Creator, who saves us from eternal 
damnation, and from unquestionable fire and 
brimston." 

She has a long poem on Mary Queen of 
Scots : — 

" Queen Mary was much loved by all, 
Both by the great and by the small ; 
But hark ! her soul to heaven doth rise, 
And I suppose she has gained a prize ; 
For I do think she would not go 
Into the awful place below. 
There is a thing that I must tell, — 
Elizabeth went to fire and hell ! 
He who would teach her to be civil, 
It must be her great friend, the divil ! " 

She hits off Darnley well : — 

"A noble's son, — a handsome lad, — 
By some queer way or other, had 
Got quite the better of her heart ; 
With him she always talked apart : 
Silly he was, but very fair ; 
A greater buck was not found there." 

cc By some queer way or other " ; is not this 
the general case and the mystery, young ladies 



34 Marjorie Fleming. 

and gentlemen ? Goethe's doctrine of " elective 
affinities " discovered by our Pet Maidie. 

Sonnet to a Monkey. 
" O lively, O most charming pug ! 
Thy graceful air and heavenly mug ! 
The beauties of his mind do shine, 
And every bit is shaped and fine. 
Your teeth are whiter than the snow ; 
Your a great buck, your a great beau ; 
Your eyes are of so nice a shape, 
More like a Christian's than an ape ; 
Your cheek is like the rose's blume ; 
Your hair is like the raven's plume ; 
His nose's cast is of the Roman : 
He is a very pretty woman. 
I could not get a rhyme for Roman, 
So was obliged to call him woman." 

This last joke is good. She repeats it when 
writing of James the Second being killed at 
Roxburgh : — 

" He was killed by a cannon splinter, 
Quite in the middle of the winter ; 
Perhaps it was not at that time, 
But I can get no other rhvme ! " 

Here is one of her last letters, dated Kirk- 
caldy, 1 2th October, 1 8 1 1. You can see how 

her nature is deepening and enriching : — 

" My dear Mother, — You will think that 



Marjorie Fleming. 35 

I entirely forget you but I assure you that you 
are greatly mistaken. I think of you always 
and often sigh to think of the distance between 
us two loving creatures of nature. We have 
regular hours for all our occupations first at 7 
o'clock we go to the dancing and come home 
at 8 we then read our Bible and get our re- 
peating, and then play till ten, then we get our 
music till 1 1 when we get our writing and ac- 
counts we sew from 1 2 till 1 after which I get 
my gramer, and then work till five. At 7 we 
come and knit till 8 when we dont go to the 
dancing. This is an exact description. I must 
take a hasty farewell to her whom I love, rever- 
ence and doat on and who I hope thinks the 
same of 

cc Marjory Fleming. 

"P. S. — An old pack of cards (!) would be 
very exeptible." 

This other is a month earlier : — 

cc My dear little Mama, — I was truly 
happy to hear that you were all well. We are 
surrounded with measles at present on every 
side, for the Herons got it, and Isabella Heron 
was near Death's Door, and one night her 



36 Marjorie Fleming. 

father lifted her out of bed, and she fell down 
as they thought lifeless. Mr. Heron said, 
€ That lassie's deed noo,' — f I 'm no deed yet/ 
She then threw up a big worm nine inches 
and a half long. I have begun dancing, but 
am not very fond of it, for the boys strikes 
and mocks me. — I have been another night 
at the dancing ; I like it better. I will write 
to you as often as I can ; but I am afraid not 
every week. / long for you with the longings of 
a child to embrace you, — to fold you in my arms. 
I respect you with all the respect due to a mother. 
You dont know how I love you. So I shall remain, 
your loving child, — M. Fleming/' 

What rich involution of love in the words 
marked ! Here are some lines to her beloved 
Isabella, in July, 1811: — 

" There is a thing that I do want, — 

With you these beauteous walks to haunt ; 

We would be happy if you would 

Try to come over if you could. 

Then I would all quite happy be 

Now and for all eternity. 

My mother is so very sweet, 

Ana checks my appetite to eat ; 

My father shows us what to do ; 

But Ol'm sure that I want you. 



Marjorie Fleming. 37 

I have no more of poetry ; 

O Jsa do remember me, 

And try to love your Marjory, 5 ' 

In a letter from "Isa" to 

" Miss Muff Maidie Marjory Fleming, 
favored by Rare Rear-Admiral Fleming," 

she says : cc I long much to see you, and talk 
over all our old stories together, and to hear 
you read and repeat. I am pining for my old 
friend Cesario, and poor Lear, and wicked Rich- 
ard. How is the dear Multiplication table 
going on ? Are you still as much attached to 
9 times 9 as you used to be ? " 

But this dainty, bright thing is about to flee, 
— to come cc quick to confusion." The measles 
she writes of seized her, and she died on the 
19th of December, 181 1. The day before her 
death, Sunday, she sat up in bed, worn and 
thin, her eye gleaming as with the light of a 
coming world, and with a tremulous, old voice 
repeated the following lines by Burns, — heavy 
with the shadow of death, and lit with the 
phantasy of the judgment-seat, — the publican's 
prayer in paraphrase : — 

" Why am I loth to leave this earthly scene r 

Have I so found it full of pleasing charms ? — 



38 Mar j orie Fleming. 

Some drops of joy, with draughts of ill between, 
Some gleams of sunshine 'mid renewing storms ? 
Is it departing pangs my soul alarms ? 

Or Death's unlovely, dreary, dark abode ? 
For guilt, for guilt, my terrors are in arms ; 

I tremble to approach an angry God, 
And justly smart beneath his sin-avenging rod. 

"Fain would I say, Forgive my foul offence, 
Fain promise never more to disobey ; 
But should my Author health again dispense, 
Again I might forsake fair virtue's way, 
Again in folly's path might go astray, 
Again exalt the brute and sink the man. 

Then how should I for heavenly mercy pray, 
Who act so counter heavenly mercy's plan, 
Who sin so oft have mourned, yet to temptation ran ? 

" O thou great Governor of all below, 
If I might dare a lifted eye to thee, 
Thy nod can make the tempest cease to blow, 
And still the tumult of the raging sea ; 
With that controlling power assist even me 
Those headstrong furious passions to confine, 

For all unfit I feel my powers to be 
To rule their torrent in the allowed line ; 
O aid me with thy help, Omnipotence Divine." 

It is more affecting than we care to say to 
read her Mother's and Isabella Keith's letters 
written immediately after her death. Old and 
withered, tattered and pale, they are now : but 
when you read them,. how quick, how throbbing 



Marjorie Fleming. ^9 

with life and love ! how rich in that language 
of affection which only women and Shakespeare 
and Luther can use, — that power of detaining 
the soul over the beloved object and its loss ! 

"K. Philip to Constance — ■ 

You are as fond of grief as of your -child. 
Const. — Grief fills the room up of my absent child, 

Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me ; 
Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words, 
Remembers me of all his gracious parts, 
StuiFs out his vacant garments with his form, 
Then I have reason to be fond of grief." 

What variations cannot love play on this one 
string ! 

In her first letter to Miss Keith, Mrs. Flem- 
ing says of her dead Maidie : cc Never did I 
behold so beautiful an object. It resembled the 
finest wax-work. There was in the countenance 
an expression of sweetness and serenity which 
seemed to indicate that the pure spirit had an- 
ticipated the joys of heaven ere it quitted the 
mortal frame. To tell you what your Maidie 
said of you would fill volumes ; for you was 
the constant theme of her discourse, the sub- 
ject of her thoughts,, and ruler of her actions. 
The last time she mentioned you was a few 
hours before all sense save that of suffering 



40 Marjorie Fleming. 

was suspended, when she said to Dr. Johnstone, 
c If you let me out at the New Year, I will 
be quite contented.' I asked her what made 
her so anxious to get out then ? c I want to 
purchase a New Year's gift for Isa Keith with 
the sixpence you gave me for being patient in 
the measeles ; and I would like to choose it 
myself.' I do not remember her speaking after- 
wards, except to complain of her head, till just 
before she expired, when she articulated, c O 
mother ! mother ! ' " 

Do we make too much of this little child, 
who has been in her grave in Abbotshall Kirk- 
yard these fifty and more years ? We may of 
her cleverness, — not of her affectionateness, her 
nature. What a picture the animosa infans gives 
us of herself, — her vivacity, her passionateness, 
her precocious love-making, her passion for na- 
ture, for swine, for all living things, her reading, 
her turn for expression, her satire, her frank- 
ness, her little sins and rages, her great repent- 
ances ! We don't wonder Walter Scott carried 
her off in the neuk of his plaid, and played 
himself with her for hours. 

The year before she died, when in Edinburgh, 
she was at a Twelfth Night Supper at Scott's, 



Marjorie Fleming. 41 

in Castle Street. The company had all come, — 
all but Marjorie. Scott's familiars, whom we 
all know, were there, — all were come but Mar- 
jorie ; and all were dull because Scott was dull. 
" Where 's that bairn ? what can have come 
over her ? I '11 go myself and see." And he 
was getting up, and would have gone ; when 
the bell rang, and in came Duncan Roy and 
his henchman Tougald, with the sedan chair, 
which was brought right into the lobby, and 
its top raised. And there, in its darkness 
and dingy old cloth, sat Maidie in white, her 
eyes gleaming, and Scott bending over her in 
ecstasy — " hung over her enamored." " Sit 
ye there, my dautie, till they all see you " ; 
and forthwith he brought them all. You can 
fancy the scene. And he lifted her up and 
marched to his seat with her on his stout 
shoulder, and set her down beside him ; and 
then began the night, and such a night ! Those 
who knew Scott best said, that night was never 
equalled ; Maidie and he were the stars ; and 
she gave them Constance s speeches and Hel- 
vellyn, the ballad then much in vogue, and 
all her repertoire, — Scott showing her off, and 
being ofttimes rebuked by her for his inten- 
tional blunders. 



42 Marjorie Fleming. 

We are indebted for the following — and our 
readers will be not unwilling to share our obli- 
gations — to her sister: " Her birth was 15th 
January, 1803 ; her death, 19th December, 181 1. 
I take this from her Bibles.* I believe she was 
a child of robust health, of much vigor of body, 
and beautifully formed arms, and, until her last 
illness, never was an hour in bed. She was 
niece to Mrs. Keith, residing in No. 1 North 
Charlotte Street, who was not Mrs. Murray 
Keith, although very intimately acquainted with 
that old lady. My aunt was a daughter of Mr. 
James Rae, surgeon, and married the younger 
son of old Keith of Ravelstone. Corstorphine 
Hill belonged to my aunt's husband; and his 
eldest son, Sir Alexander Keith, succeeded his 
uncle to both Ravelstone and Dunnottar. The 
Keiths were not connected by relationship with 
the Howisons of Braehead, but my grandfa- 
ther and grandmother (who was), a daughter 
of Cant of Thurston and Giles-Grange, were 
on the most intimate footing with our Mrs. 
Keith's grandfather and grandmother ; and so it 
has been for three generations, and the friend- 

* " Her Bible is before me ; a pair, as then called ; the 
faded marks are just as she placed them. There is one at 
David's lament over Jonathan." 



Marjorie Fleming. 43 

ship consummated by my cousin William Keith 
marrying Isabella Craufurd. 

cc As to my aunt and Scott, they were on a 
very intimate footing. He asked my aunt to 
be godmother to his eldest daughter Sophia 
Charlotte. I had a copy of Miss Edgeworth's 
c Rosamond, and Harry and Lucy' for long, 
which was c a gift to Marjorie from Walter 
Scott,' probably the first edition of that attrac- 
tive series, for it wanted c Frank,' which is 
always now published as part of the series, 
under the title of Early Lessons. I regret to 
say these little volumes have disappeared. 

" Sir Walter was no relation of Marjorie' s, 
but of the Keiths, through the Swintons ; and, 
like Marjorie, he stayed much at Ravelstone in 
his early days, with his grandaunt Mrs. Keith ; 
and it was while seeing him there as a boy, that 
another aunt of mine composed, when he was 
about fourteen, the lines prognosticating his 
future fame that Lockhart ascribes in his Life 
to Mrs. Cockburn, authoress of c The Flowers 
of the Forest ' : — 

" Go on, dear youth, the glorious path pursue 
Which bounteous Nature kindly smooths for you ; 
Go bid the seeds her hands have sown arise, 
By timely culture, to their native skies ; 



44 Marjorie Fleming. 

Go, and employ the poet's heavenly art, 
Not merely to delight, but mend the heart.' 

Mrs. Keir was my aunt's name, another of Dr. 
Rae's daughters. " We cannot better end than 
in words from this same pen : " I have to ask 
you to forgive my anxiety in gathering up the 
fragments of Marjories last days, but I have 
an almost sacred feeling to all that pertains 
to her. You are quite correct in stating that 
measles were the cause of her death. My 
mother was struck by the patient quietness 
manifested by Marjorie during this illness, 
unlike her ardent, impulsive nature ; but love 
and poetic feeling were unquenched. When 
Dr. Johnstone rewarded her. submissiveness 
with a sixpence, the request speedily followed 
that she might get out ere New Year's day 
came. When asked why she was so desirous 
of getting out, she immediately rejoined, c Oh, 
I am so anxious to buy something with my 
sixpence for my dear Isa Keith.' Again, when 
lying very still, her mother asked her if there 
was anything she wished : c Oh yes ! if you 
would just leave the room door open a wee 
bit, and play c The Land o' the Leal,' and I 
will lie and think, and enjoy myself (this is 
just as stated to me by her mother and mine). 



Marjorie Fleming. ■ 45 

Well, the happy day came, alike to parents 
and child, when Marjorie was allowed to come 
forth from the nursery to the parlor. It was 
Sabbath evening, and after tea. My father, 
who idolized this child, and never afterwards 
in my hearing mentioned her name, took her 
in his arms ; and, while walking her up and 
down the room, she said, c Father, I will re- 
peat something to you ; what would you like ? ' 
He said, c Just choose yourself, Maidie.' She 
hesitated for a moment between the paraphrase, 
c Few are thy days, and full of woe,' and the 
lines of Burns already quoted, but decided on 
the latter, a remarkable choice for a child, 
The repeating these lines seemed to stir up 
the depths of feeling in her soul. She asked 
to be allowed to write a poem ; there was a 
doubt whether it would be right to allow her, 
in case of hurting her eyes. She pleaded ear- 
nestly, c Just this once ' ; the point was yield- 
ed, her slate was given her, and with great 
rapidity she wrote an address of fourteen lines, 
( to her loved cousin on the author's recovery,* 
her last work on earth : — 



' Oh ! Isa, pain did visit me, 
I was at the last extremity ^ 



46 Marjorie Fleming. 

How often did I think of you, 
I wished your graceful form to view,** 
To clasp you in my weak embrace, 
Indeed I thought I 'd run my race : 
Good care, I 'm sure, was of me taken, 
But still indeed I was much shaken, 
At last I daily strength did gain, 
And oh ! at last, away went pain ; 
At length the doctor thought I might 
Stay in the parlor all the night ; 
I now continue so to do, 
Farewell to Nancy and to you.' 

cc Sh& went to bed apparently well, awoke in 
the middle of the night with the old cry of 
woe to a mother's heart, c My head, my head ! ' 
Three days of the dire malady, c water in the 
head,' followed, and the end came." 

" Soft, silken primrose, fading timelessly." 

It is needless, it is impossible, to add any- 
thing to this : the fervor, the sweetness, the 
flush of poetic ecstasy, the lovely and glowing 
eye, the perfect nature of that- bright and warm 
intelligence, that darling child, — Lady Nairne's 
words, and the old tune, stealing up from the 
depths of the human heart, deep calling unto 
deep, gentle and strong like the waves of the 
great sea hushing themselves to sleep in the 



Marjorie Fleming. 47 

dark ; the words of Burns, touching the kin- 
dred chord, her last numbers "wildly sweet" 
traced, with thin and eager fingers, already 
touched by the last enemy and friend, — moriens 
canit y — and that love which is so soon to be her 
everlasting light, is her songs burden to the 
end. 

" She set as sets the morning star, which goes 
Not down behind the darkened west, nor hides 
Obscured among the tempests of the sky, 
But melts away into the light of heaven." 



Cambridge : Stereotyped and Printed by Welch, Bigelow, & Co. 



I V 

Marjorie Fleming. 



A SKETCH 



BEING THE PAPER ENTITLED 



"PET MARJORIE: A STORY OF CHILD-LIFE 
FIFTY YEARS AGO." 



By JOHN BROWN, M. D., 

AUTHOR OF "RAB AND HIS FRIENDS." 



i 




BOSTON : 

TICKNOR AND FIELDS. 

1864. 



^^^ *^H^ £^H^ 



™ ™ 



DR. BROWN'S WRITINGS. 



SPARE HOURS; 

By John Brown, M. D. 

1 vol. 12mo. $ 1.50. 

The author of " Rab and his Friends " scarcely needs an introduction 
to American readers. By this time many have learned to agree, with a 
writer in the North British Review, that " Rab " is, all things con- 
sidered, the most perfect prose narrative since Lamb's " Rosamond Gray." 
[From the London Times, October 21.] 

" Of all the John Browns, commend us to Dr. John Brown, the physician, 
the man of genius, the humorist, the student of men, women, and dogs. By 
means of two beautiful volumes he has given the public a share of his by- 
hours, and more pleasant hours it would be difficult to find in any life. 

'• Dr. Brown's master-piece is the story of a dog called * Rab.' The tale 
moves from the most tragic pathos to the most reckless humor, and could not 
have been written but by a man of genius. Whether it moves to laughter or 
to tears, it is perfect in its way, and immortalizes its author." 



RAB AND HIS FRIENDS. 

3d edition. 1 vol. 16mo. Paper. 15 cents. 
[From the Morning Herald.] 

" Who is he that has not heard of, if not read, ' Rab and his Friends * ? We 
suppose that there have been few stories ever printed which, in so short a 
time, won for their author fame. Certainly never was a story so short and so 
pathetic, so full of joyous tears, so brimming with the actions from which 
spring sacred pity. We do not envy the man, and we cannot imagine the 
woman or girl, who could read the story of ' Rab and his Friends * without tears 
actual or imminent." 

[From Chambers' Journal.] 

" What Landseer is upon canvas, that Dr. Brown is upon paper. The 
canine family was never before so well represented in literature." 



PET MARJORIE 

1 vol. 16mo. Paper. 25 cents. 



D^=" For sale by all booksellers, or sent, postpaid, to any address on 
receipt of the price, by the publishers, 

TICKNOR & FIELDS, Boston. 



MR. LONGFELLOW'S NEW VOLUME. 



The recent publication of Mr. Longfellow's new work may justly be 
regarded as one of the most important events in the literature of the year. 
The work itself is pronounced by competent critics the most finished pro- 
duction of the poet's genius. 

TALES OF A WAYSIDE INN, 

AND OTHER POEMS. 
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 

1 vol. 16mo. $ 1.25. 

Handsomely bound in muslin, bevelled boards, and gilt top. 

03^ Sent, postpaid, to any address on receipt of the price, by the pub- 
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135 Washington St., Boston. 



THE GREAT BATTLE BOOK. 



Ticknor & Fields have just published 

My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field. 

BY "CARLETON." 

1 vol. 12mo. Profusely illustrated with Engravings, Maps, and Diagrams. 

$ 1.00. 

The object of this book is to tell the youth of America, in plain and 
simple terms, 

THE CAUSES OF THE REBELLION j 
to give them an idea of the valor and courage of their fathers and brothers, 
who are now upholding the national cause by fighting 

THE BATTLES OF THEIR COUNTRY. 

With this view, the author has given authentic and vivid descriptions of 
some of the most important battles of the war, drawn from his own per- 
sonal observations, and has thus made his work at once an absorbing 
narrative and a truthful history of the war. 

All parents who desire their sons to have a clear and distinct idea of the 
nature of the struggle through which the country is passing, should buy 
this book. " Carleton," the author, is well known as one of the best and 
most reliable of the army correspondents. 

O 3 A copy sent, postpaid, to any address on receipt of One Dollar, 
by the publishers, 

TICKNOR & FIELDS, Boston. 



CHOICE N EW BOOKS, 

LATELY PUBLISHED BY 

TICKNOR AND FIELDS, BOSTON. 

THE LIFE OF WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT, Au- 
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George Ticknor, Author of the " History of Spanish Literature." 1 
vol. Quarto. Illustrated with Steel Portraits, Wood Cuts, and Auto- 
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TALES OF A WAYSIDE INN, and Other Poems. By 
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THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN WINTHROP. 

By Robert C. Winthrop. 1 vol. 8vo. Handsomely bound in muslin, 
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HOUSEHOLD FRIENDS. A book for all seasons. Illustrated 
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ANGEL VOICES ; or, Words of Counsel Yor Overcoming the 
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LITTLE ANNA. A Story for Pleasant Little Children. By A. 
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ed with Engravings on Wood. 75 cents. * 

SOUNDINGS FROM THE ATLANTIC. By Oliver Wen- 
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THOUGHTS OF THE EMPEROR MARCUS AURELIUS 
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IN WAR TIME, and Other Poems. By John Greenleaf 
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MENTAL HYGIENE. By I. Ray, M. D., Superintendent of 
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OUR OLD HOME ; A Series of English Sketches. By Nathan- 
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REMAINS IN PROSE AND VERSE. By Arthur Henry 

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METHODS OF STUDY IN NATURAL HISTORY. With 
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